OFG: Garden Assistance Party

The Garden Assistance Party (GAP) provides hands-on help to assist people in creating an OFG. Because the Surfrider Chapter is made up of volunteers, we typically limit the size of the area to around 500 square feet. We also want to take volunteers from beginning-to-end of a task. The GAP is aimed at those who have attended an OFG Basics Class and Hands-On Workshop, have a highly visible location, and invite their neighbors to participate – and spark a wave of OFGs in the neighborhood. Before you contact a Chapter for help, review and work through the GAP Questionnaire.

Requirements (your job) - The following tasks are embodied in our GAP Agreement Form, for both residential and public sites:

Acquire the materials needed ahead of time such as plants, soil amendments, irrigation, tools, etc.

Ask your neighbors and friend to join us on the GAP workday so that the neighbors will also be inspired to go home and do it, too.

Provide lunch.

If physically able, be willing to put in some “sweat equity” – that is, help your neighbor go OFG and/or be willing to work with us on someone elses garden.

Read more about how to put on a GAP here (scroll down the page until you find the info).

When To Hire a Professional

For those who do not know where to start first, we recommend that you hire a professional landscape designer to do a site evaluation of your landscape. A site evaluation means that a professional can walk around your landscape with you and give you a sense of what could be done where and prioritizing some first steps. It is not a landscape design, but worth the money to get you going in the right direction. In the event that your site is chosen to be an OFG Workday location, a site evaluation will help to identify what specific activities volunteers can work on the day they show up.

For those in Southern California, click here for a list of professionals that understand OFG and are certified by the Green Gardens Group.